The invention relates generally to a scanning radiation sensor and, particularly, to such a sensor with the capability of individually measuring and concurrently providing read out of radiation from a plurality of spots on a target and apparatus and methods of measuring radiation from such spots by sample averaging techniques.
Scanning radiation sensors which scan a target and average a plurality of radiation samples from a plurality of points along a scan line on a target to determine the average radiation from the target are known. Some scanning radiation sensors use a beam of laser light to mark the scan line. Such scanning radiation sensors, while having the ability of marking the line being scanned, are incapable of marking spot targets along the line for individual measurement.
Another problem with known scanning radiation sensors is that while they are capable of averaging multiple samples which improve accuracy, the known techniques and methods of averaging achieves less than optimal accuracy.
Moreover, known techniques in scanning radiation sensors which are used to determine average temperature of remote targets through averaging of multiple radiation samples fail to obtain maximum accuracy in conversion of the average radiation sample to indications of temperature.